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Creating parts for BD Armory
Introduction HI, you've come here hoping to learn how to make weapons and parts as expansions to the BD Armory plugin. I'll get straight down to business and state that if you have never even made a simple fuel tank for KSP then PLEASE go and have a look at some basic modelling tutorials first. By making, I don't mean editing a config file then tweaking the texture and calling it a mod, I mean starting from an empty screen in the modelling software of choice and creating a part from a simple mesh, texturing exporting, importing into Unity, correctly setting it up for KSP importing it into KSP and having the joy of seeing your glorious part in the part editor. The reasons for this are quite straightforward . While once you know how. making addons for BDA is not difficult, at the simplest level, Even at that simple level they do have some very firm requirements regarding rotations of transforms ( if you don't know what a transform is you really need to have a look at some tutorials) , rotations of parts in the editor and until you are familiar enough with the creation process, fairly rigid names that particular transforms should have. You could start straight in as somebody who's never modeled even a cube, and probably eventually end up with a decent result, though you are just as likely wondering why your turret wont fire or why the game doesn't even recognize it as a BD Armory part. I spend a lot of time on KSP's forum helping new mod creators and some not so new bring their creations and dreams to life, proving that there's no substitute, at this time, for experience. In my time i have made and fixed probably well over 200 different weapons and BDA compatible parts, from tiny six shooters for EVA Kerbals, through fantasy Rail guns and phasers to gigantic WW2 turrets and missiles, including cluster missiles and bombs, replicas of German V weapons, vehicles with integral weapons, from fighter planes with built in period guns to gigantic 1 part super tanks, tiny rocket pods and huge 122mm rocket turrets firing 32 custom rockets. Even after all that i do get stuck sometimes, things don't work as expected, or even worse in a completely unexpected way. The Basics I'll start with a simple turret (sorry i don't do video tutorials) As this provides a grounding in the basic basics. At the base level a weapon does not even need to resemble a real weapon, The BDA plugin doesn't care what it looks like, all the plugin cares about is that you have the parts/transforms correctly positioned, rotated and correctly named without typos or case errors in unity, and the exact same names that are used in unity are used in your part.cfg, there are no ways around this one, you either get it right or it simply will not work at best, and at worst it will cause so many null reference errors to be written to the game log that. in all likelihood, the game will be reduced to a stop motion cartoon level of FPS (frames per second). Now we've got that sorted and perhaps you are having second thoughts, if you are take a moment to consider also, that when you first start making these wonderful parts, it wont be a ten minute process, in fact it will never be. Yes i can throw the simplest of fixed aircraft weapons together in a matter of minutes, but it will look like it as well, nice parts that work well take time, and the more complex the longer it takes. Still here? good! Now we get to the potential beginnings . The simplest weapon or part to make and the one most people start with is a fixed Aircraft cannon or machine gun (me? my first BDA part was a quad 50 turret, and it's still in the mod) A basic Aircraft cannon/MG an be as simple as a tube or cylinder. with if you're feeling extravagant a small box at one end to make surface attachment easier, correctly position this loose assemblage of parts, add a Fire transform ( this is the part that tells BDA which way to fire the bullet, without this every projectile weapon is an ornament, well an ornament that can crash your game) Make sure that Fire transform is pointing the direction you want, and you can as most do, just grab the cfg from BDA's .50cal , tweak the values to suit your needs, import the new part call it myspacecannon or some other fitting name , load up the game, and if you've got it right first time, it'll appear in the BDA part editor tab. you can then attach it to your chosen vehicle, not forgetting to sort out the ammo supply, launch your newly weaponised creation and wreak havoc around KSC. There' s plenty of exploding stuff around your local space establishment . Just to be clear all the simplest of BD Armory weapons needs to work is a fire transform that is correctly oriented. Much more to come and lots of rare reference images, thank you for reading. SpannerMonkey The Basics I'll start with a simple turret (sorry i don't do video tutorials) As this provides a grounding in the basic basics. At the base level a weapon does not even need to resemble a real weapon, The BDA plugin doesn't care what it looks like, all the plugin cares about is that you have the parts/transforms correctly positioned, rotated and correctly named without typos or case errors in unity, and the exact same names that are used in unity are used in your part.cfg, there are no ways around this one, you either get it right or it simply will not work at best, and at worst it will cause so many null reference errors to be written to the game log that. in all likelihood, the game will be reduced to a stop motion cartoon level of FPS (frames per second). Now we've got that sorted and perhaps you are having second thoughts, if you are take a moment to consider also, that when you first start making these wonderful parts, it wont be a ten minute process, in fact it will never be. Yes i can throw the simplest of fixed aircraft weapons together in a matter of minutes, but it will look like it as well, nice parts that work well take time, and the more complex the longer it takes. Still here? good! Now we get to the potential beginnings . The simplest weapon or part to make and the one most people start with is a fixed Aircraft cannon or machine gun (me? my first BDA part was a quad 50 turret, and it's still in the mod) A basic Aircraft cannon/MG an be as simple as a tube or cylinder. with if you're feeling extravagant a small box at one end to make surface attachment easier, correctly position this loose assemblage of parts, add a Fire transform ( this is the part that tells BDA which way to fire the bullet, without this every projectile weapon is an ornament, well an ornament that can crash your game) Make sure that Fire transform is pointing the direction you want, and you can as most do, just grab the cfg from BDA's .50cal , tweak the values to suit your needs, import the new part call it myspacecannon or some other fitting name , load up the game, and if you've got it right first time, it'll appear in the BDA part editor tab. you can then attach it to your chosen vehicle, not forgetting to sort out the ammo supply, launch your newly weaponised creation and wreak havoc around KSC. There' s plenty of exploding stuff around your local space establishment . Just to be clear all the simplest of BD Armory weapons needs to work is a fire transform that is correctly oriented. Much more to come and lots of rare reference images, thank you for reading. SpannerMonkey